Emilie was one of 20 children who were shot and killed by Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old gunman from Newtown. Lanza also shot seven women, including his mother, Sandy, and my friend, Lauren Rousseau, before turning the gun on himself at the school like a coward.

And yet, Parker stood before the world, strengthened by his little girl, the one with the blonde hair and blue eyes.

"The love and strength (Emilie) shows us is remarkable. She is an incredible person and I am so blessed to be her dad," Parker said, slipping into the present tense, which only made his grief harder to hear.

Despite the evil of this shooting, Parker said the massacre "should not define us but should inspire us to be more compassionate and more gentle people."

Earlier Saturday, folks who never met Emilie Parker, or her classmates, or her teachers at Sandy Hook School, mourned them deeply just the same.

Pete Samoskevich sat behind the counter at NJK Automotive on South Main Street and chewed on a nightmare in between bites of his sausage, egg and cheese sandwich.

"The guy shot and killed his mother, for Christ's sake. Isn't that terrible enough? Why did he have to go to that school and kill all those kids? How do you go forward after something like this?" Samoskevich shrugged. "But I guess you have to. You have to do it."

This has become the mantra for Newtown. The people here have to do it.

And they will.

Samoskevich's boss, Nick Kopcik, stopped working on the transmission of his flatbed tow truck for a moment.

"We're the second-largest town (by area) in the state and the smallest town in the world," Kopcik said. "There won't be anyone in Newtown who doesn't know someone touched by this."

This is when six degrees of separation magnify the madness of a tragedy that didn't have to be. But with this kind of exponential grief comes exponential solidarity.

Tonight, President Barack Obama will speak at a memorial service for the families of Sandy Hook Elementary and the town that has wrapped them in its collective embrace.

For parents lucky enough to be reunited with their children Friday morning, there is an indelible image of kids wearing coats down to their ankles -- and parents wearing short sleeves -- as they walked up Riverside Road.

"If you really look at this in the most honest way, we can't change what happened, but we can help these families through the most difficult time of their lives," said P.J. Hickey, 17, a Newtown High senior who works part-time at NJK Automotive.